Nancy Sikorski and Eric Solberg recall, Sparta Area School District, Wisconsin (2021)

• Recall efforts
  • Recall efforts by state
  • Recall efforts by office
  • Recall efforts by year
  • Upcoming recall elections
• Local recalls
  • City council recalls
  • Mayoral recalls
  • County commission recalls
  • County official recalls
  • School board recalls
  • Sheriff recalls
  • Special district recalls
• State and federal recalls
  • State executive recalls
  • State legislator recalls
  • U.S. Congress recalls
• Laws governing recall
  • States that have pre-petition signature requirements for recalls
  • States that require grounds for recalls
• Analysis
  • What are recalls?
  • Recall terms
  • 2024 mid-year analysis
  • 2023 year-end analysis
  • 2023 mid-year analysis
  • 2022 year-end analysis
  • 2022 mid-year analysis
  • 2021 year-end analysis
  • 2021 mid-year analysis
  • 2020 year-end analysis
  • 2020 mid-year analysis
  • 2019 year-end analysis
  • 2019 mid-year analysis
  • 2018 year-end analysis
  • 2018 mid-year analysis
  • 2017 year-end analysis
  • 2017 mid-year analysis
  • 2016 year-end analysis
  • 2016 mid-year analysis

2021 Sparta Area School District recall
Recall status
Resigned
Table of contents
Recall supporters Recall opponents Path to the ballot 2021 recall efforts
See also
External links Footnotes

An effort to recall Nancy Sikorski and Eric Solberg from their positions on the Sparta Area School District Board of Education in Wisconsin did not go to a vote as the board members resigned before the deadline to submit signatures.

The recall effort started after board members voted 4-2 on September 8, 2021, to approve a motion to require masks for students and staff while inside school buildings in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The vote reversed a previous motion of the board that made masks optional. Sikorski and Solberg voted in favor of the motion along with members Colin Burns-Gilbert and Josh Lydon. Members James Rasmussen and Heidi Prestwood voted against the motion, and member Ed Lukasek was absent from the meeting. Burns-Gilbert and Lydon were not eligible to be included in the recall effort as they had not completed one year of their term.

To read about other recall efforts related to the coronavirus and government responses to the pandemic, click here.

Recall supporters

The recall paperwork was filed by Melissa Brooks. She said it was not a personal attack against Sikorski and Solberg but instead a disagreement with their policies.

Joshua Nichols, a member of the recall effort, said:

“

It’s time we separate the Monroe County Health Department from the school board and to afford the school board to operate as a single unit free. From coercion and other entities [...] We need to get back to the time where (the school board) made the decisions and not the health department that was not elected to make decisions on behalf of parents.

”

Recall opponents

Sikorski said she stood by her vote on requiring masks. “I’m not an expert but we have a lot of smart people and that’s who I’m listening to right now – doctors, nurses, the public health officials,” said Sikorsky.

When he resigned from the board, Solberg said, “I do not want to minimize the responsibilities of being a board member, but my primary responsibility is to my family, my health and then my business.” He told the Monroe County Herald, "This was affecting me to a very personal level that was affecting my health and my family and we needed to make a change."

Path to the ballot

See also: Laws governing recall in Wisconsin

The recall paperwork was filed in September 2021. To get the recall on the ballot, supporters would have had to collect at least 1,679 signatures from eligible voters in the Sparta Area School District in 60 days. The number of signatures was equal to 25% of voters in the school district who cast ballots in the 2018 gubernatorial election. If petitions had been turned in by the deadline, the school district would have had 31 days to verify the signatures.

Recalls related to the coronavirus

See also: Recalls related to the coronavirus (COVID-19) and government responses to the pandemic

Ballotpedia covered 35 coronavirus-related recall efforts against 94 officials in 2022, accounting for 13% of recalls that year. This is a decrease from both 2020 and 2021. COVID-related recalls accounted for 37% of all recall efforts in both 2020 and 2021. In 2020, there were 87 COVID-related recalls against 89 officials, and in 2021, there were 131 against 214 officials.

The chart below compares coronavirus-related recalls to recalls for all other reasons in 2020, 2021, and 2022.

2021 recall efforts

See also: School board recalls

Ballotpedia tracked 92 school board recall efforts against 237 board members in 2021. Recall elections against 17 board members were held in 2021. The school board recall success rate was 0.42%.

The chart below details the status of 2021 recall efforts by individual school board member.

See also

• Sparta Area School District, Wisconsin
• Recall campaigns in Wisconsin
• Political recall efforts, 2021
• School board recalls
• States that allow school board recalls

External links

• Search Google News for this topic
• Sparta Area School District